Horizons celebrates 25 years!

Flashing forward to summer 2024, 100 Grade 7 to 9 students from underserved neighbourhood schools in the TDSB and TCDSB were able to take part in a range of compelling educational opportunities. 

Jyoti Sehgal, Horizons director, describes the variety of a typical day in the Summer Program: “One group visits the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, one group is at UCC’s Norval Outdoor School, and one group is here on campus, conducting science experiments. Lots of opportunities for engagement through these activities!”

Each grade level participated in a two-hour workshop with Indigenous Elder, Traditional Teacher and Knowledge Keeper Cat Criger. “He’s been affiliated with Horizons and UCC for a long time,” Sehgal says. “He supports the learning of Indigenous perspectives on the history of Canada. And for our Grade 9 summer students, he provided an Indigenous angle to wellbeing.” 
 

Horizons programming evolves with the times, and this year introduced an AI focus for the Grade 8s and 9s, honing in on the positive and negative implications and ethics of using the burgeoning technology.
 

“It was highly engaging and our students loved it,” Sehgal says. “They developed a novel with ChatGPT to see its capacity and its limitations, such as when images are manipulated and don’t look right or when facts are questionable.”

Field trips included an overnight outdoor learning experience at Norval as well as a trip to the Bata Shoe Museum. The Grade 9s visited the Human Anatomy Lab at the University of Guelph, while the younger students visited the MLSE LaunchPad, which teaches co-operative learning and sports skills.  

UCC’s dedicated rowing facility The Lindsay Boathouse was the destination for an afternoon excursion for the Grade 9s, who were introduced to rowing by coach Manny Azarcon. 

“None of them had experienced rowing,” Sehgal says. “Manny talked about how anybody, even without prior experience, can begin rowing at any time in their lives. Maybe that piqued some interest.”

During the academic year, Horizons involves about 150 UCC student volunteers including all of the Year 9s, and younger students from 15 partner schools. Research has shown that working with younger students — by, for example, creating a project together in a UCC design lab — builds students’ capacity for empathy, lowers stress, and draws in connection to the broader community. The research also shows that these and other benefits often transfer beyond the program. 

Says Sehgal, “If UCC students are chatting with younger students in a leadership capacity about fair play in competition, that ethic may carry over to experiences outside of Horizons.” Part of UCC’s goal in getting its students involved in Horizons, she explains, is to “have them think critically about equity, access, and recognizing our common humanity with others more than our differences.”